BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 officially unveiled

RIM has officially unveiled the latest addition to their lineup of BlackBerry Bold phones. Called the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930, it will be RIM’s thinnest BlackBerry phone to date. The Bold 9900/9930 will finally make the transition to a touchscreen phone. For all you dedicated QWERTY keyboard lovers, don’t worry, RIM hasn’t gotten rid of them, the Bold 9900/9930 will still have one and this time RIM claims it’s their best keyboard to date. Hit the break for more specs and photographs. Update: read our Bold 9900 preview!

BlackBerry Bold 9900

The BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 will also be the first BlackBerry device to run BlackBerry 7 OS. It will feature a 1.2GHz High Performance GPU, 768MB of RAM, 8GB of storage (expandable to 32GB), Voice Activated universal search, and NFC capabilities (also a first for BlackBerry phones). According to its official specs, the phone will also be 4G capable on GSM networks, supporting HSPA+ (14.3mbps down/5.76mbs up), but unfortunately there’s no LTE support. It will have a rear 5 megapixel camera with flash, image stabilization and HD video recording. The phone will also support location-based services and augmented reality. No prices or territories have been announced yet but the phone is expected to arrive in late summer this year.

It looks like a huge step up from the current BlackBerry Bold which a lot of people consider outdated in today’s smartphone market. The beefier specs, BB 7 OS (especially since RIM has announced that it won’t be available for their older phones), touchscreen, 4G support, and NFC will definitely be encouraging a lot of current BlackBerry owners to upgrade, and possibly draw in new ones. Could RIM be back in the game? We’ll have to wait and see.

Disclaimer: we have been invited by RIM to attend BlackBerry World with many other journalists/bloggers. Our trip and hotel accommodation have been arranged by, and paid for, by RIM. We always pay for our travel expenses to events like CES, MWC, CEATEC, etc… but when we are invited, we want to be transparent about it.